Real or Virtual Matter - or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Matrix
On the way to the Space Elevator, an improbable view pop ups through the hyperloop oval window. It is the fleeting mirage of a floating ocean - or a gargantuan aquarium - stealing an entire city block. For a fraction of a second I can hear it, smell it, taste it... that is, I feel the seashore with all my senses. It was late afternoon, and a kaleidoscopic (virtually out-of-this-world) sunset had transfixed me, so it takes me a moment to realize that such experience was anything but real. These were not whales, dolphins and fish - just holographic projections rendered in a carefully crafted simulation (kids these days probably don’t mind the distinction; I guess I am too old not to feel cheated). Dancing voxels of light: not a single flying fish. A short multimedia choreography took my senses by surprise, prompting that primitive part of my brain always eager to believe. These were fish - these were somehow fish - claims an inner voice rapidly gaining ground in my mind [1]. The